Day: October 24, 2012

When we hear about ghosts, the first image we get is a story told in front of the orange flames of a campfire against the dark, a barrier against the unknown that surrounds us. I remember one of those stories being about the ghostly hitchhiker who vanishes after being picked up. That story is an urban legend, but the ghost story I’m about to tell you really did happen. To me. And it wasn’t scary.

This post is part of the Absolute Write October Blog Chain, with “Otherworldly” as the theme. At the end of the post is a list of the other contributors, so check in on their posts.

My own ghost starts with a house. This one:

It’s the house that was built by my great-great grandfather Havilah Babcock, one of the co-founders of the Kimberly-Clark company (the Kleenix guys). He decorated the entire house to his personal taste. It was so much his personal taste that after the house was inherited by two of his daughters, they were afraid to touch anything!

So it was left as it was, and eventually my grandparents inherited it. Essentially, the family is living in a museum. For pictures of the interior, check out the book Wisconsin’s Own. But you if want a quick view, the cover of this catalog shows the library.

The house is the only one in the United States that is still occupied by the descendents of the original builder.

My grandfather died 18 years ago, and my grandmother Arva earlier this year. After Arva died, my uncle reported ghostly activity. Nothing scary — but clearly something “otherworldly.” He thought it was Havilah’s wife, Frances Kimberly. So, as part of the memorial service for Arva, we had a psychic come out to the house. Not contact Arva, but just to see what was going on in the house.

The psychic was not told anything in advance. In fact, she was completely shocked when she saw the outside of the house. While we waited in the kitchen, she and my uncle wandered through the first floor. In minutes, my uncle was back, telling us to hurry. The psychic had contacted Havilah!

We rushed to the library. The psychic described Havilah as being brilliant, almost brilliant to the point of autistic. My father, who followed along the same route, was amazed at where it had come from. The psychic reported that Havilah was pleased by the caretakers of the house — he dropped in periodically to make sure it was well cared for. Then he was abruptly gone, which was, according to the psychic, the nature of spirits.

So we retreated back to the kitchen to wait, and then a few minutes later, they’re back. This time, Arva had stopped in to visit. If there were any doubts about the psychic, they were gone with this. She knew one thing about Arva that no one would have said, would not have been posted anywhere, and yet was common knowledge: Arva liked to talk. The psychic was having some problems because it was “talk, talk, talk, talk.” The psychic mentioned that Arva was not always well-treated because she was a little progressive for her time. Arva also knew about two babies that had been born after she had died.

After that, I had to dash off to catch my plane at the airport. They were four hours wandering around the house, and other spirits dropped in for a spell. But Arva stayed present during that time and kept saying that we were not to sell the house.